BIGGEST & BADDEST

We all love a moan about the cost of bikes, but some gear’s gone beyond piggy bank smashing and into kidney-selling territory!

THE £10,000 BIKES

Several ‘boutique’ brands have been pushing towards the £10k mark, including Intense (see p42) and Santa Cruz, with their racewinning V10 CC. If you’re dropping a cool £9,949 on a DH bike you can expect it to be adorned with some of the trickest parts going – ENVE carbon wheels, Fox dampers and SRAM X01 DH shifting. You’ll need deep pockets – and still won’t be as quick as Greg Minnaar!

THE £1,500 FORKS

Gone are the days when you could get a top-spec downhill fork for under a grand. You’re now looking to spend in excess of £1,500 to get a range-topper from any of the top brands, including RockShox, Fox, BOS and DVO. You’ll end up with a fork capable of dominating the roughest World Cup tracks – which begs the question, can you handle ’em?! Even Danny MacAskill super fans will find it hard to justify investing in his signature MT7 brakes from Magura. OK, they look awesome in yellow and ought to stop you on a dime, but holy hell, £599.99 is a lot of wonga for a set of stoppers! For that price, we’d want a guarantee that some of Danny Mac’s skills would rub o on us.